Maroons old-time duo will never fade
Maroons old-time duo will never fadeSydney Morning Herald, AustraliaOur officials rewind, review and even rewrite the rules - as they did with a fine to
Cronulla's Paul Gallen over a racist slur - in order to show the public they get things right. But sometimes it ends up wrong. One
NRL executive said at half-time at
...
Source: http://www.smh.com.au/news/origin/broy-mastersb/2009/06/04/1243708566733.html
Maroons old-time duo will never fade
Roy Masters
June 5, 2009
THE packaging and the payment of State of Origin football have changed, the technology is more sophisticated and the coaching is better researched but the essence of rugby league - the grunt and struggle - is timeless.
Origin I was won via the relentless go-forward of Queensland's veteran props when only six points separated the two teams in the closing stages of the match. With the Maroons leading 24-18 and some of their young players showing signs of panic, front-rowers Petero Civoniceva and Steve Price carried the ball from the Queensland quarter, sapping the energy of the NSW pack and extinguishing the Blues' hopes of retrieving the ball in an attacking position.
Honest Petero, whom NSW selector Laurie Daley declared at a pre-game lunch as someone who had "had his time", and Price, whom he deemed vulnerable to being "exposed", sucked the last breath from the Blues.
They are a reminder that footballers don't play State of Origin games just for glory, or even for money, although some of their managers will look greedily at the $1.8 million Victoria's Major Events Company paid the Australian Rugby League for the match, admittedly some of it backloaded at the end of a successful contract.
These men play because it is still their time and place in the 30-year history of a series that continues to confound and confuse, never following a script.
The only certainty going into the match was that the young Blues had to score the first try to grow their confidence and unsettle a Queensland team demonstrating rare - and probably false - bravado in the days before kick-off. Some of the Storm players in the Maroons squad teasingly sent their NRL coach, Craig Bellamy - also the Blues mentor - text messages saying 4-0, indicating Queensland would win a record fourth straight series.
Former Maroons captain Wally Lewis, aware favouritism doesn't sit easily with the Moreton Bay fig tree on the shoulder of the Queensland psyche, warned the team before the match, saying: "They've got to face life in the other direction now."
But instead of staring at a NSW try after eight minutes, they were saved by an uncertain touch judge and a video referee who is as historically as certain of his judgments as the Pope.
When NSW left winger Jarryd Hayne tip-toed down the touchline and seemingly scored, touch judge Jeff Younis stood with his flag by his side, signalling a try but one of the referees must have asked whether he was sure. The doubt must have been enough for one of the two on-field referees, Tony Archer, to send the decision upstairs to the video referee, Bill Harrigan, who was assisted by Tim Mander.
After more replays than re-runs of Friends, Harrigan erased his own doubts with the verdict of "no try", even though he had the opportunity to rule "benefit of the doubt", which would have been a try to NSW.
So a man running only three metres behind Hayne as the winger scampered upfield couldn't make a decision while a man seated 100 metres away could. Why have touch judges?
OK, Harrigan was supplied with the technology that is increasingly both feeding and sheltering officials, with NRL referees' boss Robert Finch saying afterwards, "He [Archer] is lucky he went to the video ref. They've got about 48 different camera angles and slow-mo to use."
But some of us still argue video replays distort reality and we are more confident in the body language of players, particularly the Queensland ones who assumed Hayne had scored a fair try. Hayne was running on his toes, a fact which may have been overlooked by the video referee.
Whereas Four Corners devastated rugby league with its "Code of Silence" report, out there on that rectangular patch of green, "Code of Transparency" would be a more apt description.
Our officials rewind, review and even rewrite the rules - as they did with a fine to Cronulla's Paul Gallen over a racist slur - in order to show the public they get things right. But sometimes it ends up wrong.
One NRL executive said at half-time at Etihad Stadium: "We've given match officials the benefit-of-the-doubt convention and we expect them to use it."
NSW chairman of selectors Bob McCarthy said Hayne would have won the man-of-the-match award if the Blues had triumphed. He was confident about the Blues' chances for the second match in Sydney, saying: "NSW have got more improvement in them than Queensland."
Like many Blues supporters, he lamented Queensland's "rub of the green" with the decisions of the match officials. But if you think back to Queensland's pair of warhorse props in the final 10 minutes when the game was there to go to golden point, the real rub of the green was the evidence of their toil on their grass-stained shorts and sweat-soaked jerseys. Last rites for Petero and Price turned to last laughs.
